Death on the Greasy Grass

by C. M. Wendelboe

  The singers’ voices began high at first then dipped low, in tune with the drum, the heartbeat of Indian Nations. The singers seated around the drum struck with precision, eagle feathers tied to drumsticks, bouncing hair falling in eyes. Their beat reminded Manny of polka music and in some deep way, he was certain that was why he liked that music so much. Thum. Thump. Thum. Thump. Manny found himself tapping the bleachers with his shoe, much as he had done that first time he heard the beat, that first time as a boy when he had fallen in love with the music.

  The song over, the MC donned his Stetson. “I give you the 7th Cavalry,” he said, and stepped off the field.

  “Now we’ll see something.” Manny took the dustcover off the camera lens as he waited for the show to begin. Two abreast, the cavalry soldiers trotted onto the field. The sergeant with the loud mouth and empty whiskey flask rode at the front. They unsheathed rifles as they rode, took Remington and Colt pistols from holsters, waiting for the charge of their sworn enemy.

  Loud whooping and hollering accompanied the Indian with the yellow face paint. He kicked his horse and rode full gallop toward the troopers. The sergeant dragged out his role, carefully taking aim at the chief, waiting until he’d ridden close before firing. Even though Manny knew the round was stage ammunition, he jumped just as he got off his own shot with his Kodak.

  The chief slumped over his horse as the sergeant predicted, then rolled onto the field. On cue, the rest of the Indians charged the cavalry, smoke filling the field, yelling drowning out gunfire.

  “Garryowen,” Custer’s field song, filled the air as the trumpeter in front of the line of cavalry raised a brass bugle to his lips, signaling troopers to make a charge of their own, with both sides firing en masse. Soon, the reenactors disappeared in the black powder smoke that hung low over the field.

  Alexander in the role of Custer rallied his troops as the final charge by the Indians began. Shooting. Yelling. Smoke lingering on the field. Thick enough that Manny could taste the powder, seemingly untouched by the wind, as if staying there to remind spectators of the carnage that day in 1876, as if the smoke were playing a role in obscuring the soldiers’ dead bodies from those who would come after to mutilate them.

  As suddenly as the firing had started, it stopped, replaced by an eerie silence. Fallen cavalry and Indians lay motionless on the ground, their horses milling about as if waiting for the fight to start again. One bay lit out across the Little Big Horn with a splash, while a riderless paint dropped its head to graze at the edge of the field.

  Clapping spectators arose from their seats, high-fiving the reenactors for their performance. When the clapping subsided, people grabbed their padded stadium seats, along with empty bottles and paper plates, and began the treacherous descent from the bleachers. Manny was finishing his Indian taco while he and Willie waited for the crowd to disperse.

  “Looks like one wasn’t so lucky.” Willie chin-pointed to one of the Crow youngsters, red and yellow war paint smudged with grass stains, sitting on the ground and rocking back and forth, holding his wrist that turned at an odd angle. One of the soldiers squatted beside the boy, talking to him as they waited for the paramedics. “Casualty of war,” Willie said, finally starting down the bleachers.

  The chief with the yellow face lay where he’d been “shot,” while his gray nickered over the top of him, wanting more action. Another Indian walked past him, nudged him with the toe of his moccasin, and said something in passing.

  Two women dressed in Lakota patterned deerskin dresses walked toward the boy with the broken wrist. One bent to yellow face as she walked by.

  And screamed.

  Manny stood on tiptoes to see over the heads of those still making their way down the bleachers. The woman backed away and her hands flew to her face to muffle her screams, blood dripping between fingers and smearing her cheeks.

  Paramedics responding to broken wrist diverted to yellow face. They dropped their jump bag beside the body and gingerly rolled him over. One grabbed a stethoscope from around his neck, while the other one cut away the man’s shirt. Within moments, they put their gear back into their bag and stood. Paramedics are interested only in the living.

  CHAPTER 2

  JUNE 25, 1876

  Levi Star Dancer reined his lathered pony beside White Crow. Levi’s horse snorted to greet the taller man sitting on his paint gelding as if he’d been born to it. But then, Crow warriors were born with horses’ withers beneath them. “Took you long enough to catch up. Levi.”

  Levi swatted at his friend’s head, but White Crow laughed and ducked.

  “You know I do not like that. I am Star Dancer of the Whistling Water clan.”

  “It is what the White man calls you. Levi.”

  “I do not like it.”

  “You liked it when they gave you the name and the blankets.” White Crow was right. The horse soldiers had given him a name and blankets and food in exchange for his scouting. But Levi would have scouted for nothing had he known they were going after the sworn enemy of the Apsa’alooke, and he need never have been saddled with a White man’s name.

  White Crow extended his long brass glass and looked out across rolling hills that seemed to move. Buffalo grass and gamma grass, tall this year, undulated with the rising and falling of the wind that blew over from the mountains to the west.

  Any other day, it would have been serene. Any other day, Levi would have thanked the Creator for such wonderment. Any other day: except the day that Colonel Custer chose to die. “Any sign of the others?” Colonel Custer had dismissed his Crow scouts before the fighting began, and they had scattered to parts unknown.

  White Crow shrugged and handed the glass to Levi. “I saw them ride to where we fought the Lakota at the Rosebud eight days ago.”

  Levi extended White Crow’s looking glass. The Lakota, enemies of the Crow, had fought ferociously under the command of Crazy Horse at the Rosebud. Levi wanted no more run-ins with that warrior.

  Levi squinted against the sun as he put the long glass to his eye. Puffs of smoke from a hundred guns showed like puffs from a pipe across the valley. The pop-pop-popping of gunfire reached them, and Levi counted the seconds between the puffs and the sound: a mile. Perhaps more. He and White Crow had ridden out just in time.

  “Colonel Custer is a fool. We told him . . .”

  “We told him not to attack the camp.” Levi adjusted the telescope and tried to spot where Custer and his men were fighting for their lives. Warriors like ants wiggled through wind-moving prairie, while the Greasy Grass, bright light shimmering off its shallow water, meandered below the battle, oblivious to the fighting going on above it. “The river will be stained red this day. Just be grateful the colonel ordered us to leave.”

  White Crow bent to his paint’s neck and grabbed the water bladder tethered to the pony’s mane. He took a long pull and handed it to Levi. “Those Lakota and Cheyenne will have Custer’s liver for dinner. I wonder what happened to the others.”

  Levi shrugged and allowed the cool water to snake its way down his parched throat. He handed the deer bladder back to White Crow and glassed the battle. “The last I saw Goes Ahead, he was on the heels of White Man Runs Him and Hairy Moccasin.” He closed the glass and handed it back. “And they were as angry as we were.”

  White Crow brought a white muslin tobacco pouch from his saddlebag. He opened the drawstring and started rolling a smoke. “I could have killed Custer myself. Accusing us of being cowards.”

  Custer had done them a favor telling them to leave, telling them he would not fight with cowards. But Levi and White Crow, as well as the other Crow scouts, would have stayed. And they all would have been dead, just like Custer’s soldiers would be dead before the sun settled over the rolling hills. More popping. More soldiers dying, though at this distance, Levi could only imagine which group of fighting men was the horse troopers and which was the Lakota an
d Cheyenne.

  Levi spat, his throat dry, and he bent to his own water bladder, the sudden familiar groaning like meat boiling inside his bowels. He doubled over as he leaped from his pony, dropping his rifle on the ground. He ran bent over clutching his belly.

  He cursed the running sickness, feeling the food sloshing in his gut, praying he would make it over the hill before he messed his pants. Again. White Crow’s laugh followed close behind him, but it did not matter: He had made it to the far side of the hill, away from his friend’s prying eyes, and he tested the wind before he squatted. His afternoon meal shot out of him like some of those hot gushers in the mountains to the west, his cramping instantly gone as it always was after an episode. Always he prayed for an ak’bari’a. Always he prayed for a healer who could cure him.

  Finished, his muscles felt as if he’d just completed a footrace, and he remained squatting, the tall grass hiding his embarrassment. He grabbed his journal and began tearing off a page before he caught himself. He closed the book, and instead yanked out a handful of buffalo grass. Paper was far too scarce to use to clean himself. He stood on shaky legs as he pulled his pants up and cinched the drawstring. He took deep breaths before he made his way back, knowing White Crow would needle him.

  Cries. Loud, angry cries. War cries!

  Levi dropped to the ground. He scrambled to the edge of the hill, keeping low, peering between tall prairie grass just as White Crow fired his muzzle-loader. Its sound was so different from the repeater Levi carried, which he had left beside his pony when he had run for the grass moments ago.

  White Crow stood, powder horn plug in his teeth, shaking violently. He spilled powder over his arm. He frantically rammed another ball down the barrel, as two Lakota rode hard up the hill. They kicked their horses’ flanks, rifles shouldered. Both fired as one. The bullets struck White Crow full in the chest, dust kicking off his breastplate. He dropped the buffalo horn, spilling powder onto the earth. He fell faceup, his lifeless eyes, accusing eyes, finding Levi’s stare.

  The short, stocky Lakota dropped off his horse, knife in hand as he ran to White Crow. He dropped and skidded on his knees beside the corpse. Pooling blood from the chest wound was clumping beside the Lakota’s knees. He lifted White Crow’s hair to make the scalp cut, just when the tall Lakota, still sitting on his pony, shot his shorter friend in the back. The tall one swung his leg over his pony and dropped to the ground. Levi drew in a breath that he feared would be heard, and his hand went naturally to his gut, where this man had shot him two years ago while trapping beaver near the Valley of the Giveaway. This one called Eagle Bull.

  The stocky warrior rolled over onto his face, gathering his arms beneath him, looking back, his pleading, disbelieving eyes watching Eagle Bull lever another round and shove his rifle barrel against his head. Blood and gray matter spilled over the stocky man’s back and peppered White Crow’s bare legs.

  Eagle Bull looked around and nudged his dead companion with the toe of his moccasin before turning to White Crow. Eagle Bull slid his knife from the sheath, made the scalp cut in one motion, and lifted White Crow’s scalp. He tucked it into his fringed shirt and stood. He walked to the place where Levi had dropped his rifle and picked it up, blowing dust from the action.

  Levi unsheathed his own knife and crouched, judging the distance, judging the time it would take to rush Eagle Bull. Eagle Bull stopped, his hand tightening on his rifle, his head turning toward Levi hidden in the grass. Levi realized he would not get two steps before Eagle Bull saw him and shot. A Crow—enemy of the Lakota since oral history told of their conflicts—was understandable. But why had Eagle Bull killed his own friend? Levi held his breath as he wiped sweat from his hand on his trousers. Anyone evil enough to kill a comrade for the honor of a Crow scalp and his pony would gladly kill an enemy.

  Eagle Bull, his head swiveling and eyes darting like an owl listening for the mouse, stepped toward Levi. Levi relaxed his muscles, for he knew tight muscles reacted slowly, and prepared to rush Eagle Bull. Another step. Eagle Bull lifted his head up, testing the wind. Levi thanked the Creator his mess was downwind from where the Lakota stood with rifle clenched, looking for someone else to kill.

  Levi looked away. The eyes draw the eyes, as he had learned from a lifetime of hunting the same type of warrior that now had the upper hand mere feet away.

  Eagle Bull shrugged and relaxed his grip on his rifle. He turned to Levi and White Crow’s ponies and gathered their reins. He swung his leg over his own pony’s back, leading the other horses down the hill. He stopped and looked over his shoulder, as if taunting Levi, before resuming the slow walk toward the huge enemy camp just across the Greasy Grass.

  Levi waited until he could no longer hear the snort of Eagle Bull’s pony before he stood and walked to his friend. White Crow lay with blood clotting in his open eyes from the insulting, bone-deep cut encircling his head.

  Levi shuddered. He jumped at the screech of the owl. He jerked his head around, but he saw no owl plying its grisly trade near his dead friend. Levi shuddered anew. White Crow’s ira’xaxe, his soul, remained near his body.

  But he knew he had heard it. He had heard the owl’s lament, the soul grieving for the man, who moments before had breathed the air of a free-ranging warrior. And Levi would forever hear that cry as it wrenched at the fringes of his consciousness.

  CHAPTER 3

  Willie skidded to a stop, narrowly missing a suicidal doe antelope crossing the road. The dust settled just as she reached the ditch on the other side. She stopped and looked back over her shoulder before snacking on gamma grass. Willie breathed deeply and turned to Manny. “Maybe if you’d had your brake shoes replaced this heap would be able to stop safely.”

  “You’re the one that wanted to drive.”

  “Only because I want to come off this vacation alive.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You know just what I mean.” Willie looked sideways and continued down the gravel road. He didn’t have to explain: Manny’s crappy driving continued to scare Willie. Since Manny had returned to Pine Ridge from Virginia, he had seriously wrecked four cars, and he’d had a minor accident with Willie’s truck. Okay, so it wasn’t minor to Willie. But I fixed it. And if they had mass transit here in the outback, I wouldn’t have wrecked those. Willie wisely insisted on driving to Crow Agency from Pine Ridge, and he wouldn’t let Manny near the wheel. Of his own car.

  “At least let me change the music.”

  Manny reached for the CD, but Willie slapped his hand away. “You said come up with some compromise, and I have. Now sit back.” Before leaving on their vacation, Manny told Willie he’d have to shitcan his powwow CD. And Willie countered that he wouldn’t ride all the way to Montana listening to Manny’s polka.

  “Then come up with something else,” Manny had told him.

  And Willie had. He turned up Three Dog Night, the back woofers thudding the rock song. At least it was easier on Manny’s ears than ZZ Top.

  Willie turned the music down a notch. “Don’t you beat all.”

  “What?”

  “This.” Willie motioned to the road. “I’m supposed to be on vacation and I’m stuck here with you.”

  “We could have been stuck here with the ladies.”

  Willie rolled his eyes. “Another of your great ideas. ‘Get away from the women for a week,’ you said. ‘If we miss them, that’ll tell us if we love them,’ you said. Now I’m at Crow Agency with you for God knows how long.”

  “Is it my fault the SAC called me?”

  “You didn’t have to answer your cell.”

  “He knew I went to the reenactment. He knew I was there when the yellow-faced reenactor got killed. What better way to start an investigation than actually witness the death.” The Special Agent in Charge of the Rapid City Field Office had agreed to “lend” Manny to the Billings office for the duration of the
investigation. The Billings office had no Native American agents. The SAC felt Manny would be an asset, to cut through Indian red tape, and thought, mistakenly, that Manny preferred working reservation cases. “Besides, this looks like nothing more than an accident. Some boob put the wrong ammo in the gun. A day at Crow Agency and we’re out of here. Maybe catch Old Faithful before heading back to Pine Ridge.”

  Willie shook his head. “Must be more to it than that, or the SAC wouldn’t have pulled you off vacation.”

  Manny looked away but Willie caught it. “There is more.”

  Manny nodded. “BIA here says the victim, Harlan White Bird, owned an auction house in Lodge Grass specializing in Indian artifacts. Had a huge auction at the end of the reenactment every year. They think there might be some connection. They think it was no accident.”

  * * *

  A dispatcher smiled at Willie, then frowned when Manny showed his FBI ID wallet. Dispatch was directly inside the front door of the justice building, and the dispatcher looked the part of the building guard. Beneath her denim shirt she flexed muscles that Manny was sure she could back up, and she held her glare long enough to tell Manny that federal law enforcement wasn’t any more popular here than on Pine Ridge. She pointed toward a conference room down a long hallway, her smile lingering on Willie a moment longer.

  A black-uniformed Bureau of Indian Affairs officer sat at a long table across from a Crow Agency tribal policeman. The tribal policeman, with thin legs sticking out of jeans frayed where the bottoms met his scuffed boots, sat crooked in a chair, one foot on the table, picking his teeth with a pocketknife.